Now posted on thousands of lotto outlets all over the Philippines are signs that say “closed,” as the Philippine National Police (PNP) shut them down following President Rodrigo Duterte’s suspension of gaming activities granted by the government-run Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) on Friday.
The closing of the lotto outlets happened as early as Saturday, according to PNP chief Police General Oscar Albayalde.
“I immediately directed all Police Regional Offices nationwide to launch a massive crackdown against illegal gambling and arrest anyone who will continue to engage in illegal acts,” he said in a statement posted on Facebook.
He also warned that gaming outlets with franchises, licenses, and concessions granted by the PCSO should “cease and desist” their businesses. These gaming outlets include lotto stores, small-town lottery kiosks, Peryahan ng Bayan carnivals, and Keno shops.
Albayalde’s statement came with a video showing him and other police officers taping a sign that says “closed” on a lotto outlet authorized by the PCSO.
The PCSO is a government-owned and controlled operation that legalizes lottery and other gaming activities. Funds raised by the government through these outlets are meant for charities, health programs, and medical assistance and services. However, Duterte ordered the suspension of these gaming activities in a Facebook video on Friday due to “massive corruption.”
“I have today ordered the closure, the stoppage of all gaming schemes … whatever nature, however done, that got the franchises to do from the PCSO,” the president said. “The ground is massive corruption involving all, [including] the courts who repeatedly issued injunctions to paralyze government and to allow corruption to thrive.”
He also said that all PCSO gaming activities are “suspended or terminated” pending investigations and ordered the police and military to enforce this. The president said that they are now illegal because permits and concessions are terminated based on his order.
According to the PNP, they have shut down 21,173 PCSO gaming outlets as of yesterday, affecting the livelihood of its owners all over the country. This includes 5,187 lotto stores, 13,320 small-town lottery kiosks, 2,194 Peryahan ng Bayan carnivals, and 472 Keno shops, ABS-CBN News reported.
Senator Nancy Binay called the police out for their “theatrics” in visiting gaming outlets and manually closing them down themselves, calling it a “misplaced sense of priority.”
“Instead of wasting their time in closing down lotto outlets, why don’t they turn their attention to running after and catching those on their wanted list or [investigating] the killing cases in Negros?” she said in English and Filipino in a statement released yesterday.
She said that the servers of these gaming outlets were already offline even before the police physically shut them down.
“There’s no point for police operatives to padlock non-operational betting stations that are already out of business. It’s kind of overkill and OA (overacting),” Binay said.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra has ordered the National Bureau of Investigation to probe the alleged corruption and said that gaming operations won’t resume until they’re done investigating, Rappler reported.
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